Criminality is generational says top Ballarat lawyer

By Dominic Brine and Brenton Shaughnessy

Award-winning lawyer and former state politician, Diane Hadden, believes more needs to be done to educate children from a young age in order to break the cycle of criminal re-offending, which she says is common within the Ballarat community.

"Ballarat is a great community. But unfortunately we have a generation of offending, where you are looking at the third and fourth generation of offending - so parents are producing criminals and those children are producing criminals."

Ms Hadden - who was awarded regional lawyer of the year by the Law Institute of Victoria on Friday night - is also mindful of how others regard Ballarat.

"A magistrate told me a couple of years ago that Ballarat was lucky it only had its third generation of criminal offending, whereas Geelong was into its fourth generation, which means our system is failing children from a very young age, and it means those services are not put in to assist those families who are struggling."

She has been a lawyer in Ballarat since 1986, and says cases of family violence have also increased dramatically in this time.

"We have a dedicated family violence court in Ballarat, which has been operating here for about eight years."

Ms Hadden says the rise in cases is due in part to an increase in victim reporting, and due to the work done by the dedicated Family Violence Police Unit which operates in the city. She also believes alcohol and drug use - such as ice - have played a part in the increase.

"I think it's increased violence and aggression, and caused by not only alcohol, but also drugs."

Ms Hadden says the intervention order can't be improved upon as a legal avenue to preventing family violence. She says people just need to contain their aggression.

"You can't just go around and hit someone," she says.

Ms Hadden believes the education of children from a young age would improve the situation.

"I think it starts at primary school, where you are taught to respect people, and you're taught to not yell and scream, or want to hit (people). And that's often difficult when children are raised in a home where they see violence, so they think that it's the norm.

"It needs to change from a very young age, five or six years of age, at school."

Ms Hadden concludes that teachers have a key role.

"I think there's enormous responsibility placed on school teachers too, which shouldn't be, but unfortunately that's the way it is now."